


is it hot in this space or is it just me

by Granspn



Series: queen in 3d [10]
Category: Bohemian Rhapsody (Movie 2018), Queen (Band)
Genre: sorry freddie's not really in this one, they speak very highly of him he just doesnt make a personal appearance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-19
Updated: 2019-01-19
Packaged: 2019-10-12 14:18:39
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,774
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17469197
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Granspn/pseuds/Granspn
Summary: some musings on hot space, back chat, and the forbidden deaky/brian friendship they don't want us to know about





	is it hot in this space or is it just me

The press conference had been something of an unmitigated disaster. The album launch party promised to be better, if only marginally, since it was at Freddie’s grand estate and seemingly everyone they’d ever met and then some was invited. Needless to say, Brian was having a rough go of it. Not to mention his only ally in all this, Roger, absolutely came alive at unnecessarily raucous parties and had fucked off to actually go and enjoy himself. 

Brian was leaning against the far wall of Freddie’s enormous living room nursing a room temperature beer when he saw a familiar face through the dense throng of people on the proverbial dance floor. It had been a minute since he’d chatted to Veronica Deacon and hers was probably the last brain he had left to pick in his efforts to find out what he was doing wrong with John or if they were just doomed forever, condemned to a world of side-eyes, sarcastic remarks, and thinly veiled insults in the form of disco tracks. Yes, this was a great idea, he rationalized, setting his beer down on a nearby table and starting to stride overconfidently to where she stood, unsuspecting, scanning the crowd and occasionally checking her watch. He was focused so intently on what he was going to say to her so as not to sound like a total creep that he didn’t even hear Roger yelling his name from the top of the stairwell.

“Bri!” He called, “Hello?”

When he didn’t respond, Roger scampered down the stairs after a failed attempt at sliding down the bannister and wound up at Brian’s side, working very carefully not to trip over either of their feet, as his legs were feeling significantly more under the influence that his head was.

“Where are we off to?” He asked. No response again. “Brian? Hello? Ground control to Major Tom? Are you even listening to me?” Roger said, waving a hand in front of Brian’s face.

“Huh? What? Yes, of course.” Brian just barely refrained from wondering aloud when Roger got there.

“Then where the hell are you going?”

“What? I’m going to speak with Ronnie,” Brian answered, nodding toward where he’d seen her leaning on the mantlepiece.

“Wha-hey! Are you joking? No, you’re not!” Roger stepped in front of Brian and faced him, walking backwards to block his path to Mrs. Deacon. 

“What do you mean? I just want to chat. Ask her about John.”

“Absolutely not, mate. Don’t bring her into this! Honestly, you melancholy bastard, if you have an issue with Deaky, talk to Deaky.” How could he make it sound so easy?

“I–“

“Shut up. Don’t freak her out just because you can’t handle a little confrontation that’s about anything more important than your bloody guitar solos.” Roger stopped in his tracks, forcing Brian to do so as well if he didn’t want to walk straight into him. Brian sighed. Roger looked up at him with a kind of fierce alacrity he could be hard pressed to muster, but at least managed to when existential issues of their friendship were at stake. Brian glanced around the room. He spotted Chrissy over by the bar being wooed by some of Freddie’s dramatics while Prenter refilled her champagne. When he looked back, Veronica wasn’t even there anymore, where he’d spotted her across the grand atrium, so he resigned himself to finding John in the chaos of the party and maybe, just maybe having a real conversation with him about whatever was going on between them.

“Have you spoken with him about the album, then?” Brian finally asked. 

“One way or another, I’ve made my peace with it, yeah. I recommend you do the same, because in case you’re forgotten, we actually have to promote it without looking like we’d rather be clawing our brains out through our eyes.” 

“Oh, right.” 

“Right.”

Brian sighed again. That seemed to be one of his favorite hobbies at the moment. Brian searched Roger’s face as if the answer to his problems was hidden somewhere in his emerging crows feet, or his bright blue eyes, hidden away as they usually were by tinted shades, or perhapsin his badly bleached hair, finally returning to something like its natural blond color from the unappealing shade of green it had been for the past few months. However, his search yielded no results. 

“Will you help me find him, then?”

“Yeah, mate. Of course,” Roger said, clapping Brian on the shoulder and, presumably having seen John from his perch at the top of Freddie’s stairs, leading Brian into one of the other rooms. And there he was, hair permed to oblivion, bright patterned shirt tucked loosely into what was probably his only pair of dark wash jeans, talking animatedly about something or other to a captive ring of people, including Veronica, and Chrissy, who’d somehow gotten or perhaps been driven away by Freddie and Paul. 

“But that must have been awfully complicated!” someone Brian didn’t recognize remarked. John smiled his crinkly little bashful smile and looked down at his shoes for a moment.

“Oh, not really,” he said, looking back up, “Just a few wires and a bit of tinkering here and there.” As Brian and Roger had entered the room, some gazes left John for the spectacle of May and Taylor instead. John turned around to see who or what was causing the commotion.

“Terribly sorry! Didn’t mean to interrupt,” Roger said, making a show of being apologetic. “Please, go on!”

“Deaky was just saying how he specially built his own amplifier. It’s part of what gives you guys your unique sound, apparently,” Chrissy explained to the newcomers, making pointed eye contact with Brian as he moved to stand beside her. Never one to miss a beat, John jumped in before Brian could speak.

“You know, Brian built his own guitar, too.”

“How fascinating,” Roger said, feigning interest, while others in the group looked genuinely curious about it.

“Well, as John says, it’s really just a few wires and some tinkering,” Brian said. It wasn’t really, of course, but now was definitely not the time to get into it about the red special. At least he could figure that one out on his own. 

“And would you believe,” John added, “He’s had the same exact one since before I was even in the group.”

“Wow.” Roger.

“Yes, that and my hairstyle,” Brian said, even managing to flash a smile at his own joke in an attempt to not seem so severe and like, as Roger said, a melancholy bastard. After a few more minutes, the conversation dissolved, the disturbance Roger inevitably caused whenever he entered a room enough to end whatever little soiree had been going on in there, although Brian figured he had been playing it up for his benefit, knowing he was trying to get Deaky on his own. 

“Hey, John,” Brian said, as Deaky was moving to leave, being careful to corner him only metaphorically and not physically so that he didn’t seem like he was actually about to murder him. 

“Bri?” John said, his eyes a little glassy from drinking but otherwise sincere.

“I was actually wondering if I could have a word. Somewhere quiet maybe?”

John looked him up and down, trying to suss out his intentions. Eventually he must’ve decided he didn’t really have anything to lose at that point.

“Yes, all right,” he nodded. He waved to Ronnie and indicated he was heading out with Brian, and she offered him a friendly smile before going back to whoever she was talking to. 

“Can we go upstairs, you think? I’m sure Freddie won’t mind,” Brian asked,

“Yes, yes, I’m sure that’s fine, ” John agreed. Brian started heading toward the stairs when John added, “You know what, let me get a glass of water or something. I feel positively, I don’t know, out of it. Yourself?”

“Yeah, yeah, me too, actually. Haven’t felt myself all day.” So they snuck into Freddie’s kitchen and after weaving through various waitstaff and caterers clandestinely fetched themselves glasses of water and a whole spread of hors d’oeuvres to take into one of that cats’ rooms upstairs. 

They found a small, neatly decorated room with a little sun bed pressed up against a large window, and laid out all their goodies atop it. Deaky took a seat on top of it as well, leaning his back against the wall and resting his class on the window pane. Brian stood, pacing back and forth rather maniacally while a bemused Deaky tracked his movements. Finally Brian stopped and faced him dead on.

“Look,” he said, “I just wanted to say that I- that I’m- Look. I just wanted to say that–“

“Yes?”

“No, none of that. Come on, give me a chance.”

“All right, all right,” Deaky said, leaning back and taking a bite out of something the color of which didn’t strictly speaking look like it should belong to a food.

“I just wanted to say,” Brian started again. He hadn’t known what he was about to say until the exact moment it was escaping his lips. He’d wanted to ask what exactly he’d done wrong, why exactly John didn’t seem to have any interest in being in a rock and roll group, and what exactly he thought he was playing at producing their album like it was going to be played exclusively at gay sex clubs or something. But instead he said,

“That I’m sorry for all the, er..” The what, exactly? He didn’t know what he did that got on John’s nerves ever so much. Except he sort of did.

“Back chat,” Brian finished. 

For a moment John’s expression was completely blank. He was always unreadable and enigmatic but never more infuriatingly so then when you were baring your soul to him. But then a small smile crept onto his face and he laughed. He honest to god laughed right in Brian’s worried little face.

“Okay?” John said, “Is that all?” 

“Is that all? What? Of course it’s not all! I–“

“I’ll stop you there, Bri, please. I’m worried you’re gonna pop a blood vessel or something,” John said, pushing himself forward to sit cross legged at the edge of the bed. “I’m sorry, too,” he said. Now it was Brian’s turn to be floored. He was what? 

“You’re what?”

“I’m sorry, too.”

“Well, for what?”

“Well, for being a bit of a prick, I suppose. Don’t you?” 

“I- I guess so, yes.” Brian let out a deep breath and felt his shoulder fall a few full inches from where they’d apparently been sitting around his ears. He sat down on the bed, the tray of appetizers in between him and Deaky. After a few contemplative moments, they started speaking at the same time.

“We’re mates, aren’t we, Brian?”

“Why a disco album?” 

Brian started again before Deaky could answer him.

“What? Of course we’re mates. Or at least, I thought so. I thought we were great mates, actually. I mean, I know you’re very close with Freddie and Roger but of course I actually am as well and I–“

“Because I like disco. And I don’t know how many times you have to hear it, or how many people you have to hear it from, but it’s a fucking rock and roll album, because we’re a fucking rock and roll group. I mean, have you even listened to it? All the way through?”

“Of course! Of course I have. Over and over until my ears bled and I couldn’t think anything except what, what, what the hell happened to us to make us sound so bloody wrong!” Brian finally snapped. “And,” he added, subduing his energy somewhat, “that someone might need to physically restrain Rog from killing Paul Prenter because I’m certainly not going to hold him back.” 

Now, when Deaky laughed at that the sound was like nothing Brian had ever heard before. Like he’d been working his whole life to elicit that reaction from John and the relief he felt was monumental. 

“I’m afraid I don’t think I’ll be any help on that front,” Deaky said, his smiling fading to the familiar, tacitly contented expression he wore in those in between moments, when he was sitting in a interview just knowing he wasn’t expected to answer any questions, or when his scrabble turn wasn’t for a few minutes and he didn’t have anything to focus on besides the sounds of his bandmates’ mental machinations. 

“You have to admit there’s something funky about it,” Brian finally said, after he’d reveled in the beauty of quietude for long enough.

“About what? Paul and Freddie?”

“No, no, no, no, no. The album. It’s, and I meant this quite literally, funky.”

“Well, yes, I suppose it is.”

“It’s not rock and roll.”

“Have you heard _Put Out the Fire_?”

“Well, of course I have, I bloody wrote it, didn’t I?” 

“So that’s rock and roll.”

“Well, yes, but–“

“We’ve always been more than one thing, Brian, you know that. Don’t pretend the so-called ‘rock and roll’ we put out three years ago sounds remotely like anything we were doing when we were just getting started. Or even anything from, I don’t know, _Opera_ , for God’s sake! I mean, you shouldn’t act so obtuse. You’re a smart guy, you know about music. You know it’s a bloody evolution, don’t you?”

“Well, maybe I don’t like what we’re evolving into.” 

“I don’t think you have any control over it.”

“What, and you do?” Brian fixed him with a gaze that wasn’t quite piercing. It was more like he was boring a whole straight into John’s disco-loving brain and he wouldn’t stop till he hit groovy gold. 

“Freddie does,” John finally answered. “I just do what I like.” And he was right, wasn’t he. 

“Freddie, of course,” Brian agreed, nodding sagely. “What is it about him, huh? That makes the earth revolve around Mercury instead of the sun?”

“I don’t know,” John said simply, “but I don’t think I mind.” 

“Me neither,” Brian said, “Never for a moment.” 

They both sat there in the dimly lit bedroom, the din from the party below tempering the tender silence between them. Eventually, Deaky leaned over and grabbed another mysterious appetizer. Under Brian’s scrutinizing gaze, he defended himself.

“What? I'm too curious!” He took a bite, then made a disgusted face and painstakingly stopped himself from spitting it out.

“No good?”

“Absolutely disgusting.” 

After, wiping his hands off on his jeans, John leaned back so he was lying flat on the bed with his legs still crossed at the edge. He stared up at the ceiling looking for shapes in the chipped paint and wondering how long it would be before someone came looking for them, but Brian, lying on his back now as well, his long legs hanging off the side of the bed, spoke again before it came to that.

“And anyway, the album’s not all that bad.” That must’ve been painful.

“You don’t think so?” John asked. Brian took a little longer to answer than would have suggested he was being completely honest. Still, ever the gentleman, he answered. 

“ _Pressure_ ’s good.”

“I know.”

“It’s gonna be a hit.”

“I know,” John confirmed, but there was no animosity behind his words. Just a sort of quiet confidence that Brian was actually a little proud to see him display. Deaky didn’t write much, but when he did, he wrote massive, chart-topping hits. No one could deny he’d earned the right to what little ego he carried with him. 

And so they sat there, eyes to the ceiling as Bowie and Michael Jackson and whoever else was more relevant than they were pumped through the hardwood floors from Freddie’s powerful sound system. They couldn’t be sure how much time had passed when they heard someone bounding up the stairs.

“There you are! Thank Christ!” A familiar Norfolk rasp called out. “We were worried you’d fucked off for good and possibly murdered each other in the process.”

“Wouldn’t dream of it, Rog, and quite honestly, I’m offended you’d even say something like that,” Deaky said, grinning as he propped himself up on his elbows. Roger appeared to be wearing (at least) one fewer layer than when he'd seen him last, and his cheeks were significantly more flushed, giving quite the indication of how his night was going. Upon further inspection of the strange scene before him, Roger made a further inquiry.

“Everything all right, actually? Brian?” He asked.

“Yes, of course, Rog,” Brian answered without getting up. “We’re doing just fine.” 

**Author's Note:**

> sorry this one's not quite as fun as the last few, but i was really interested to explore the brian/deaky dynamic a little and see what i came up with
> 
> lmk what you think and if there's anything else you'd like to see!! thanks for all your comments on the last installments!!


End file.
